Man, did things work out yesterday. Morning class, got there and even sleepy I rocked it with passion. Afternoon, booked home for a conference call for work, then edited and finished a video from really rough cut to a near final cut for a client, then rocketed over to Best Buy, got the Hobbit extended cut on Blu, still got back to school on time for the night class. After that, on to Thor 2 on the big (big big) screen. 
The movie was good, and it was nice to see a television director like Alan Taylor move from a cinematic series like Game of Thrones and move on to theatrical. The IMAX 3D exclusive look at Captain America 2 was particularly good.
Speaking of Marvel Comics’ foray into multimedia-live action, let me say this: they are doing something really awesome. In the 1970’s the inferior D.C. comics were bought by Warner Brothers and with Richard Donner’s Superman (1978) and again with Tim Burton’s Batman (1989), they showed Comic Book adaptations were not just for children. Marvel however had a series of horrible missteps. From the 1970’s Spider-man TV movies turned series to the much beloved, but ultimately almost unrelatable Incredible Hulk TV series, Marvel never translated well to the screen.
Let’s not even get into the 1990’s Captain America and Fantastic Four movies…. Ugh! I already blogged about the business of Marvel movies earlier this year (CLICK HERE), but yesterday announced a clever new deal. Marvel, now owned by Disney opted to take several of their minor characters to the series route, but instead of going to a Disney owned channel, IE Disney Channel, ABC, or ABC Family; they went with Netflix, a decidely ‘new media’ outlet.
This is huge. When such an established multibillion dollar enterprise opts to go Video On Demand and forgo traditional TV or cable, then a strong path is being forged for the future of ALL new properties. Take note: Marvel making 4 news TV series of 13 episodes each, culminating in a miniseries event – > if successful (and it will be), then everyone will follow.
Daredevil, Luke Cage, and Iron Fist are all on the list and the miniseries will be the lesser known Marvel comics team The Defenders. Minus Dr. Strange, although he is rumored to be in a feature film of his own soon.
This will be the TV series version of the Avengers and we all know how poorly THAT did…. If only Joss Whedon’s AGENTS OF SHIELD had been as good as this idea. I still say they need to be putting more of the lesser Marvel, already established super heroes into THAT show. So far, I am somewhat underwhelmed and I would give Joss Whedon a lot of leeway.
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